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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824974">Waldhotel Winden</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/pseuds/flirtygaybrit'>flirtygaybrit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dark (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Unhappy Ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:22:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/pseuds/flirtygaybrit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2019, Noah returns to Waldhotel Winden seeking closure and must confront ghosts from his past; in the apocalypse, two survivors look to discover whether the foreboding hotel has secrets concealed within, and whether those secrets are worth the perilous journey to find them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonas Kahnwald/Noah | Hanno Tauber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Waldhotel Winden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been a great number of years since Hanno Tauber had last stepped foot inside Waldhotel Winden. </p>
<p>It had been well over a decade, possibly closer to two, and even that was simply a fraction of the time that Waldhotel Winden had stood in this town, having through the years serviced families, housekeeping staff, tourists, traveling businessmen. Once a proud family home, the manor’s age had, despite the great efforts that the Tiedemann family had made to maintain the structure and face, begun at last to show its age. Over the course of decades Waldhotel Winden had seen its name changed, had been renovated, repurposed… much like Hanno, who had himself taken up a different name, donned a new visage, taken up a new purpose. </p>
<p>Their very essences had changed, and like Hanno Tauber, Waldhotel Winden existed in countless states of being across countless periods of time. In the recent past, Hanno—now Noah, older and more refined, as steadfast in his identity as the hotel itself—had paid a number of visits to the manor in a time when it was at the height of its splendor, with grand wooden doors and fresh wallpaper and elegant decor that would not feel out of place for decades. In fact, the coming weeks and months would see Noah visiting the Tiedemann Estate long before it would ever earn the name ‘Waldhotel Winden’, in precisely the time in which those souls of generations past still walked among the living.</p>
<p>But those footprints had long since faded, and so too had the warmth that had permeated the manor when it had been a home. In the present, Waldhotel Winden seemed a liminal space; the furniture and decor, though well-kept, were visibly outdated, antique in this modern age, downright fashionable in their obsolescence. It struck Noah as being a shameful thing that the parking lot had been empty upon his arrival; it seemed that the hotel should have been full of tourists, transients, people simply passing through Winden who found themselves in need of a fine room as well-preserved as if it had simply been transported through time.</p>
<p>Yet in the charming hotel’s final year of operation, Noah stepped through a modern door of frosted glass and strode with calm purpose through Waldhotel Winden’s empty lobby and down an empty hallway, and held in his mind a single figure. Not one of the many ghosts who occupied this space, but one that had nonetheless occupied every second of his existence, past, present, and future.</p>
<p>It had been many years since Noah had last roamed the crumbling, empty hallways of the abandoned Waldhotel Winden. It had been only days since Noah had last knocked on the doors of the Tiedemann Estate and spoken at length with its occupants. This building was as familiar to him as any in Winden. Yet it filled him with an unspeakable dread nonetheless.</p>
<p>The room he sought entry to lay at the end of a hallway on the first floor. It would be locked, as privately rented spaces typically were, but Noah was certain that there was no lock which would keep him from following this path. It was a simple obstacle, and he had spent much of his life bypassing obstacles such as these before. There was no need to return to the lobby and request a key from the administrative staff, if any remained onsite this evening. He had even less reason—and simultaneously every reason—to interact with the property owner herself; in fact, Noah had made a resolute decision to think of the woman who owned the hotel only as such… yet how could he not see her as more than that? The thought had crossed his mind, and threatened to bubble up in the depths of his chest now, where the threat of running into Regina Tiedemann was at its greatest. He hoped that the hotel would be merciful to him in keeping them separate for only a few moments in time, yet the threat persisted. How could he look her in the eye and not see the wary and mistrustful gaze of her son, who had sat next to him in the backseat of a sleek black car not so long ago? How could he look at her and not see the look of resignation and understanding in the eyes of his father, turning away from him a final time…?</p>
<p>The answer was simple. But there were more pressing concerns at hand. </p>
<p>Noah exhaled as he stopped at the end of the hallway, surrounded on all sides by pristine damask wallpaper, modern light fixtures that lit the windowless interior like oil lanterns in a cavern, and elegantly-carved wooden doors that must have been as old as he himself was. He tried the handle, and smiled to himself when it resisted.</p>
<p>He slid his hand into his pocket.</p>
<p>He pulled out a key.</p>
<p>The key, like the hotel, was old—far older than the key that would have been given to the room’s current occupant, and yet they were completely identical. It was a key that Noah had carried for years without ever knowing why or questioning what it meant. He had assigned it an entirely different value a long time ago, and in fact had kept it not for the locks that it would open, but for the sentiment that it held. And now his foresight, though unintentional, had at last paid off.</p>
<p>Noah slid the key into the lock, turned the handle, and pushed the door inward.</p>
<p>The room, which should have been a tidy pocket of mid-twentieth century design, looked as if it had been rented to a madman. Books of varying ages and sizes and topics were stacked haphazardly on desks and chairs, with loose sheets of paper sticking from between the covers and littering the floor, and clean streaks through layers of dust on the spines which suggested that at least some of these tomes had seen recent use; half-full glasses of water were scattered across the room and appeared to have been forgotten entirely, along with the accompanying crystal pitcher.</p>
<p>But most peculiar of all was this: reaching to nearly every corner of the antique suite was a new wallpaper that was perhaps most telling of the room’s current occupant. Neatly-cut newspaper clippings both old and new, printed photographs of various mythologies and scientific diagrams, and even hand-drawn illustrations had been plastered and pinned haphazardly together to form an enthusiastic tableau of wormholes and mythological beings and impossible shapes, mingled with articles that looked as though they had been written by conspiracy theorists and photographs of faces belonging to people who had fallen into another time, never to return to the life they once knew.</p>
<p>Even the original wallpaper, bearing a mosaic pattern of black lines that overlapped and twisted over one another and formed a complex and infinite maze on a dark background, suggested both that an air of madness was innate to this particular room, and that anyone unlucky enough to be caught inside would be drawn ever deeper into the mysteries it held.</p>
<p>Aside from all of that, it was a fine room. Dark, a bit foreboding… but then, so were most things in Winden.</p>
<p>Noah closed the door and made his way inside, admiring the handiwork that had been temporarily abandoned by the room’s current tenant. Science and theology and mythology and conjecture and history waged war across dozens of papers connected by thread. Yes, it appeared to be the work of a conspiracy theorist, or someone similarly disturbed. Noah knew differently, however. This was not the first display that Noah had seen, and he had studied them with similar curiosity in the past; if the artist were truly a raving lunatic, it was just as likely that he himself was lunatic enough to make sense of it all.</p>
<p>He continued to sweep the room and tucked his key into his jacket pocket. It surprised him how unused the room felt, despite its recent resurfacing. The bedding, somewhat rumpled and yet unmade by the hotel staff, looked as if it had hardly seen a full night’s use in recent days; no toiletries occupied the bathroom, save for the complimentary bottles of shampoo and soap bars; only a few fluffy towels resided in the fine linen cabinets, making it difficult to determine how many had been used or discarded; and the bathroom sink, pristine white and bone-dry, suggested that no-one had recently shaved or brushed his teeth here within the past few hours, at least.</p>
<p>The walls of the shower, however, still glistened faintly with water droplets. And a towel lay draped over the edge of the bathtub, unfolded, damp with recent use.</p>
<p>Noah stood in silent contemplation, and after a moment, he pulled the shower curtain across the rod and turned away from the bathroom.</p>
<p>There were some things Waldhotel Winden would not forget.</p>
<p>Inside the room proper Noah sat on the edge of the bed and, with brows furrowed in deep thought, brushed his fingers over the edge of the nearest pillow. Its fine linen cover was creased from recent use, and though any lingering warmth from the night before had long since dissipated, Noah still felt that distant discomfort which had plagued him upon stepping inside. As if he had wandered not into the lair of a madman but into the haunting site of some distant ghost. For most, and logically so, there was a clear and obvious distinction between the two… yet when it came to Jonas Kahnwald—the tenant of this private room, whose existence extended far beyond this small space, seemingly pervading every dark and distant corner of Winden, scattered across space and time in the way that only deities and legend could be—there was hardly a difference. </p>
<p>Jonas Kahnwald was by all means a spectre, both haunted and haunting in the most clinical sense. And though there was nothing identifiably <i>Jonas</i> that Noah recognized in the immediate vicinity, he felt ever-present in memory and spirit, and it made envisioning him confined in this room a simple task; he might have tossed and turned until dawn in this very bed, and days would have bled into nights as he stood before his shrine to temporal conspiracy, plotting in vain to interfere in the events of the world. </p>
<p>Noah frowned and withdrew his hand, his attention drawn to the distant sound of muffled footsteps in the hallway beyond. It was not the sound of a woman’s shoe that would have signified Regina Tiedemann’s approach, but it was recognizably that of a heavy boot—an adult man’s footstep, and there could be no mistaking the identity of the man approaching. Jonas, as many of the residents of the nuclear town of Winden generally did, possessed an uncanny talent for showing up precisely where he was meant to be, at precisely the time he was meant to be there.</p>
<p>Noah did, too. Winden was in his blood as well, and if fate’s hand had not guided him here, then his choice would have been decided by the book that remained tucked inside his jacket—the book which bore the triquetra, and which included no mention of any forestside accommodations or unexpected reunions. Jonas had tried countless times to change the course of history, only to succeed in upholding the events time and time again. Noah knew a great deal about Jonas’s successes and failures, about times spanning nearly a century when their paths would cross and intertwine… and though there were many things about which Noah was confident, his being here was not one.</p>
<p>Which meant that Noah and Jonas each had the element of surprise on their side.</p>
<p>Noah moved swiftly and soundlessly through the dark of the room, striding with as much purpose as a bat through the night sky, and flattened himself against the paper-plastered wall on the other side of the door. He did so at precisely the moment when the sound of a key being inserted into the lock disturbed the tense silence of the room.</p>
<p>The door handle began to turn, and Noah took a deep and steady breath.</p>
<p>The door swung open slowly, blocking off the view of the rest of the room and drawing dangerously close to him. It had been a foolish, spur-of-the-moment decision, yet it could not possibly have been a worse decision than hiding in the closet, or in the bathtub, or beneath the bed, which had all presented themselves as viable options in the past and were for that particular reason unusable. </p>
<p>Noah’s heart pounded in his chest, unusually quick despite the calmness he forced upon himself. His body had already grown tense in anticipation of what was to come; and as he pressed himself as tightly to the wall as he could, becoming almost statuesque as had often been necessary for survival, the shadow cast by the light from the hallway shifted, sliding like smoke over the sheets affixed to the mosaic wallpaper.</p>
<p>The figure in the doorway took a single step into the doorway.</p>
<p>A moment passed. An agonizing, endless moment, one that stretched long and thin and bound each of them in place and still refused to snap. Like strands of a spider’s web slowly encasing a buzzing fly.</p>
<p>And it took far too long for Noah to realize that, as he waited for Jonas to step inside, one of the nearest sheets of paper—what looked to be a page torn from a book, the text too small and faint to read, but whose corner fell unfortunately within the light that emanated from the hallway—had begun to flutter gently in the draft from what had been an otherwise silent and inconspicuous exhale. </p>
<p>The door suddenly swung inward with violent force; caught by surprise, Noah lifted an arm to protect himself from being struck and managed to fend off the door’s assault, only to find himself being shoved back into the corner, disturbing the mirror that had been mounted over the wooden furniture nearby and causing it to rattle and shudder in complaint. With eyes glittering black and teeth bared in a snarl, Noah’s assailant held him fast against the wall, hands curled into iron fists in the lapels of his jacket, and all Noah could think of was—</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>•</p>
</div>The wooden door splintered under the force of Jonas’s second kick, dropped its ancient brass handle as if it had been bitten, and swung open on hinges that were not too shy to complain about the attack. Amusingly, Jonas seemed as surprised by his strength as the door was; unbalanced, he stumbled back onto both feet and caught himself on the wall opposite the door, causing his flashlight to do a strange dance in the dark of the hall and Hanno to step forward reactively with a hand outstretched to aid.<p>“See? Easy,” he said, as though having proven a significant point, then straightened up and stepped into the empty black of the room that had been locked only moments ago.</p>
<p>Hanno, dropping his hand and shifting his flashlight to shine it into the room, had watched most of this occur in rapid succession from several feet away, and thought only that it would have been funny to watch the door resist for only a moment longer—both because Hanno did not prefer to take risks as great as breaking down doors in the middle of the night (especially for something as simple as what was meant to be a quick and easy reconnaissance-slash-supply run) and also because it would have been funny to watch Jonas fall flat on his backside, bested by antiquitated wood and metal.</p>
<p>“It’s a good way to attract unwanted attention, too.” He paused as Jonas shot him a look. “What?”</p>
<p>“There was nobody outside. If anyone drives up or tries to come in for any reason, we’ll hear them long before they hear us,” Jonas said, sweeping his flashlight and gaze across the room with practiced ease. “Anyway, it’s open now, so we might as well check it out.”</p>
<p>His logic was more or sound, but Hanno doubted that they were as safe as Jonas assumed. Secretly, he’d already begun to grow doubtful about the treasures that were meant to lay within the walls of the hotel, which Jonas had explained as the primary reason why they were staking it out in the middle of the night, rather than roaming through abandoned shopping centres or hardware stores. Nonetheless, despite Jonas’s certainty, a single glance inside the now-open suite told Hanno most of what he needed to know; it looked just like every other room they’d moved through on the ground level of the building so far, including the thin layer of dust that covered nearly every flat surface, lending most of the aged furniture the impression that it had been abandoned far longer than a handful of years. </p>
<p>Succinctly put, Waldhotel Winden felt more akin to a crypt than a goldmine. Most of what remained here had been preserved entirely by accident, and likely should have remained undisturbed—but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the end of the world had brought nothing if not desperate times.</p>
<p>“What I don’t understand is why some of them are locked.”</p>
<p>“Have you ever been in a hotel?”</p>
<p>Hanno snorted, which was answer enough. “It just doesn’t make sense that anyone would lock a room if they weren’t staying here.”</p>
<p>Jonas moved swiftly and with purpose, skimming his gaze over the dusty wooden furnishings before moving into the bathroom, where his voice took on an oddly hollow quality as it echoed off the tile. From the outside, the way his light caught the mirror and glanced off of glass and marble seemed to make the entire room glow.</p>
<p>“It makes perfect sense if you have something you want to keep hidden. It might not keep out everybody, but it would be the easiest way to keep out people looking for an easy score.”</p>
<p>“Easy score?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, like food, equipment… maybe other people they’re trying to protect… I mean, hotels are made to make people feel safe, and you don’t lock doors for no reason. Especially in the apocalypse.”</p>
<p>“It always pays off to look everywhere.”</p>
<p>“Yep. Including the bathroom.”</p>
<p>But it hadn’t paid off thus far. Thorough searches of the previous open and empty rooms had yielded little of value. This was the first locked door they’d come to, and even though he doubted that the outcome would be any different, Hanno was willing to place his trust in Jonas’s intuition. </p>
<p>Following Jonas’s lead, he began to search through drawers, cabinets, closets, and anything else that had doors or hinges or handles. There were many spaces in which one could conceivably hide things, and many things could have been considered a valuable discovery in the new world (according to Jonas, who was by far more the expert on scavenging for salvageable goods and materials). In theory, it made sense to turn every room inside-out, but the hollow husk of the former Waldhotel Winden had provided very few clues which might suggest that any supplies lay in wait for them here; and unfortunately, scavenging abandoned structures and failing to find anything at all was not an uncommon story, especially with much of Winden’s shops and storehouses having been closed off, fenced in, liquidated, vacated, et cetera. This presented a mild inconvenience, for although their current lodgings were comfortably modest and not in danger of being targeted by looters or other roaming scavengers, their work (and, admittedly, certain modern comforts that Hanno had begun to grow fond of) still demanded things that were no longer available for purchase in stores or other such commerce centres—things like food, clothing, electronics and electronic replacement parts, and so on. </p>
<p>And seeing as Jonas had both the best understanding of modern Winden <i>and</i> the most practice in foraging for food, clothing, electronics and electronic replacement parts (and so on) in a world where such things often cost more than they were worth, it made sense to send him out on supply runs. But to be frank, although Jonas was resourceful and not easily dissuaded, he was not a particularly intimidating person. Having some small understanding of the importance of their companionship in the years to come, Hanno had always been of the opinion that it was smarter for them to work together, especially when one was in possession of a weapon and one of wiles. </p>
<p>(And to be frank and truthful both, Hanno didn’t terribly mind the company.)</p>
<p>“Why especially in the bathroom?”</p>
<p>“You always check the bathrooms in the apocalypse. Sometimes there’s medicine in the cabinets, or first aid kits under the sink, or stuff hidden in the toilet. It’s basically an unwritten rule.”</p>
<p>Hanno thought about that for a moment, and shone his light into the bathroom just as Jonas lifted the cover from the toilet’s tank and peered inside. “You really think people would hide their food or medicine in the toilet?”</p>
<p>“You never know.” Jonas paused, replaced the cover, and lifted the lid. “You see it with video games a lot.”</p>
<p>“They put video games in the toilet?”</p>
<p>“Uh… no, they don’t.” Jonas returned empty-handed from the bathroom and spun in place, brows knitting together in thought. He looked as if he were being pulled in several different directions at once; clearly, his thoughts were not in the same place as his feet. “Sometimes you see it <i>in</i> video games, like you’d see it in movies. They’re these things, these—they're videos that you play. It’s like… you control what happens in the game. You control a character and decide what they do and where they go. Sometimes you decide how the story ends based on the decisions you make.”</p>
<p>It was a very familiar concept.</p>
<p>“Like playing God,” Hanno supplied after a moment, watching Jonas decisively open the same dresser drawer he’d only just closed.</p>
<p>“Sure. Like playing God. Except you don’t have to worry about consequences, and when you die you can start over. Unlike real life.”</p>
<p>“And… because you can decide what happens in video games, you decide to leave medicine in the toilet?”</p>
<p>It wasn’t the first he’d heard of such a concept. There were some things about the future—now the present—that had been stories told to him in his childhood… but Jonas knew little of Hanno’s past, and rarely quizzed him on his knowledge of the modern world. Unlike Elisabeth, Jonas rarely seemed to care whether or not Hanno had any context for most of the things he spoke about and made reference to, and Hanno simply hoped that Jonas wouldn’t tire of his questions and impose a temporary silence on them. There was little that interested him more than expanding his knowledge of the future, and he quite secretly hoped that one day, whether out of genuine interest or simply politeness, Jonas might ask him about things from his time as well.</p>
<p>“Sometimes if there’s a zombie apocalypse or something, like Fallout or The Last of Us, you go into an abandoned building and you have to loot it to find resources, which they always give you because it’s a game of survival,” Jonas explained. “Like we’re doing now, except…” </p>
<p>“There aren’t many resources to find.”</p>
<p>Evidently unsatisfied with the lack of medicines or resources, Jonas made a frustrated sound and kicked the mattress that had been dragged partially off the bed frame and onto the floor. “Yep. And people like you still find a way to play God, but here survival isn’t a game. There are no trophies or glowing items or objectives marked on maps.</p>
<p>“People lock doors for no reason.”</p>
<p>“People lock doors for no reason,” Jonas agreed. “The apocalypse fucking sucks, and we still keep getting”—he gestured helplessly—“getting strung along by people who don’t even care about us. People who claim to be us, who say they know how they feel and that all of the suffering is part of the journey, but it’s bullshit. All of it.”</p>
<p>He dragged his palms over his face and through his hair, spun around again, and, seeing nothing new inside the room, deflated.</p>
<p>“It is bullshit,” Hanno said quietly. He stepped up next to Jonas and, seeing the look on his face, nudged a shoulder sympathetically against him. “Let’s try the next one.”</p>
<p>Like the previous unlocked room—and like many of the residences and buildings in Winden that had been abandoned after the nuclear incident, left for squatters to reside in and looters to toss again and again—the next was a complete mess. One window had been broken; the bed had been overturned, along with much of the furniture; and glass and debris littered the floor, crunching delicately underfoot as Jonas marched in and began his search anew.</p>
<p>Hanno noticed none of this. Not even the distant rumble beyond the window, which may have been a heavy vehicle in the driveway or may have been the greeting of an oncoming storm. He didn’t notice because he had not stopped thinking about how Jonas had included him in his lament. <i>Us</i>, he’d said, pivoting from <i>people like you</i>... and it had been impassioned, sure, but how often had he done that in the few years that they’d known one another? It had always been Jonas alone against the world. Or Jonas and Claudia, conspiring together against Adam and the misconceived notions they possessed about his plan. Or even Jonas and Elisabeth, who had only found one another through Hanno. Elisabeth represented the final link between their current and past lives, between the Winden Jonas had known and the Winden he now knew. </p>
<p>And Hanno had not been certain he would ever find a spot within that link. Especially with what he knew.</p>
<p>It had been difficult for Hanno to see himself in the distant expression and vague statements that the priest had made, especially after the things he had been forced to do—and though they were fresh wounds for him at the time, they were events that would have long since faded into scarring for the man who called himself Noah. Undoubtedly, the man who had consoled him with the certainty of his past had seen a great deal more trouble and torment than Hanno had yet experienced... the things he had said or done remained a mystery, yet Hanno remembered meeting Jonas on the day of the apocalypse, a version of Jonas that he had known only early in his youth, and he was certain he would never forget how Jonas, at the time an adult near the age of the priest who had visited him, had looked at him then. </p>
<p>Like he was someone long-dead and long-forgotten.</p>
<p>“So why bother looking in a place like this if you know someone’s been there?”</p>
<p>“Because,” Jonas said from the bathroom, “then we can decide for sure whether what’s left behind is useful. Sometimes people leave things that <i>they</i> can’t use, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t use them for something.”</p>
<p>Hanno checked beneath the bed, between the mattress and box spring, and behind the headboard; he searched for holes in the mattress, loose floorboards underfoot, and wall vent coverings that may have been removed and replaced; when Jonas finally rejoined him to examine the overturned furniture, Hanno took a moment to sweep his flashlight through the room, temporarily chasing away shadows that quickly closed in when the light shifted away, and then shone it at the window to illuminate a jagged hole in its center. Even through the dirty glass, which now gleamed with a few droplets of rain that seemed to multiply the longer he watched, the beam of his flashlight extended out into the empty night like a single ray of sunlight, and Hanno couldn’t help but wonder what it must have looked like from the ground—a beacon in the night, perhaps, welcoming any and all to their location… or like a lone candle flame flickering behind a window in a winter storm, providing a small comfort only to those within the walls.</p>
<p>“I think we’re getting better at recycling. Like using old clothing for bandages and face coverings,” Hanno said absently, more to himself than to Jonas. He opened the nightstand drawer and lifted out the Holy Bible that lay within, gazed at its unfamiliar cover, and then set it aside. </p>
<p>The rest of the drawer was empty. As expected.</p>
<p>He left it open and, glancing around the side of the stand, knelt down to retrieve an alarm clock that lay wedged between the wall and the broken remains of a lamp. </p>
<p>“Or,” said Jonas, who had noticed him reaching for the clock, “old batteries.”</p>
<p>The alarm clock, though complicated-looking, bore no fruit—a cord dangled from it, and a quick inspection revealed no space for batteries. Hanno, satisfied with his meagre findings nonetheless, placed the empty device on the nightstand and rejoined Jonas outside of the bathroom.</p>
<p>“Anything else?”</p>
<p>“The dressers are empty, the closet's empty… the other drawers are...”</p>
<p>He didn’t need to finish his sentence. The drawers were scattered across the room, as barren as a desert.</p>
<p>Jonas simply sighed. And so they moved on. </p>
<p>The next room was much the same; the mattress, stained and dirty, drooping down onto the floor and had to be stepped on or kicked aside to pass; a black plastic bag had been broken open and belched aged sheets of paper and crumpled trash over the floor, and the curtains that normally framed the ornate windows had been torn down and left in wrinkled piles.</p>
<p>Even the nightstand had misplaced its Bible. Hanno found it in the closet, along with a few scraps of fabric that looked as if they may once have been towels and a number of coat hangers which, being made of plastic and not metal, were virtually useless.</p>
<p>“It must feel strange having access to so many things and not being able to use any of it,” Hanno said as he carried the Bible back to its resting place. Then he paused—the pages on the bottom of the book appeared to have warped, leaving a small, dark hole, as if something had been placed between the pages, hidden just out of sight. “All of your devices and technology, and all of the–things that you kept in your homes–how is it that none of it endured even this long?”</p>
<p>“Because everything is so cheaply made, I guess.” Jonas opened the door of a linen closet, squinted inside, and closed it again. “It’s all produced in bulk in factories, and it’s not designed to last. It’s all plastics and cheap metal alloys and fabricated wood. Nothing in the modern world is designed to last more than a few years, nevermind withstand a nuclear apocalypse. They called it forced obsolescence, I think.”</p>
<p>Hanno, nodding along, flipped open the book. Nestled between the gilded-edge pages was a key, with a somewhat faded number 8 on its tag.</p>
<p>“Huh,” he said, then pocketed the key and snapped the book shut. “What does that mean?”</p>
<p>“It means things were made to break and be replaced. But it wasn’t always like that, I guess. Older things… like those flip phones from the mid-2000s, I bet they’d all still be working right now. Nothing could break a Nokia.”</p>
<p>Hanno had never heard of a Nokia. He made a mental note to ask Elisabeth about it, because if anyone from that time knew what a Nokia was, it would be Elisabeth.</p>
<p>“If you could accidentally find anything you wanted,” Hanno said after ensuring that nothing lay hidden beneath the bed frame or mattress, “what would you want to find the most?”</p>
<p>There was a minor clatter from the bathroom and the sound of glass shattering. Jonas swore loudly, and the claustrophobic bathroom walls amplified his voice to an uncomfortable volume.</p>
<p>Hanno was on his feet in an instant.</p>
<p>“Are you hurt?”</p>
<p>“Nope,” Jonas replied irritably, “just scared the shit out of myself, that’s all.”</p>
<p>Then came the sound of ceramic clattering—which Hanno now knew meant that Jonas was checking the toilet. He swore again, signifying that he had found nothing, and though this time it was quieter, it possessed as much passion as the one before. “Anything for you?”</p>
<p>“Nothing. Next room?”</p>
<p>They moved to the next room. The door was closed, and when Jonas attempted to open it, he couldn’t.</p>
<p>“Is it locked?”</p>
<p>“No, the handle’s turning, I think it’s…” Jonas dropped to his knees, knelt next to the door, and shone his flashlight beneath. “Looks like it’s blocked. Help me open it.”</p>
<p>Hanno glanced at the door and lifted an eyebrow to suggest the futility of attempting to break into a room that had been barricaded from the inside. Jonas, ignoring it entirely, tilted his head for emphasis.</p>
<p>So Hanno, who had come prepared to fight against attackers but not against doors, tucked his flashlight under his arm, grunted to show his displeasure, and stepped forward to brace his shoulder against the door.</p>
<p>It took a moment for the door to buckle and give way under their combined weight, but after several attempts, Hanno and Jonas managed to wedge the door open several inches. A quick glance inside showed an entryway that had been piled high with furniture, an impassable obstacle course disappearing into an impenetrable darkness.</p>
<p>“Well,” said Jonas, slightly out of breath and eyes bright with the adrenaline rush that came from a partial victory, “this is why we’re here, right?”</p>
<p>But Jonas had no way of knowing that their goals, while mostly aligned, had diverged somewhat along the way, and it seemed unwise for Hanno to explain that although he had agreed to travel under the cover of night to trespass on privately owned property in a time where trespassing could be fatal more frequently than not, he had other interests that lay beyond uncovering the secrets of an abandoned hotel and its mysterious locked doors. </p>
<p>After all, he had something far more precious to protect than anything that could have possibly lain in wait within the silent walls of Waldhotel Winden.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>•</p>
</div>Time had not altered Jonas Kahnwald’s face so drastically as to make him unrecognizable; true, his hair had not been quite so shaggy when Noah had seen him last, and a beard disguised the frown lines that had developed on his face, but there was much about him that was very familiar. Like his teeth, gritted and bared in a snarl like that a wild animal... and his eyes, which were filled with the same ferocity, remained deep, and dark, and sad.<p>And there was something satisfyingly familiar about the way his expression shifted from anger to recognition in the span between heartbeats, flitting first over Noah’s hat, then his collar, then lingering on the small cross pinned to his lapel… and then his face, as if Jonas needed only to confirm what he already knew to be true.</p>
<p>He stepped backward, sliding into the shadow of the room without looking away from Noah’s face until a small dresser halted his progress. It was as if he were the one under threat of being attacked. Or as if Noah himself were the spectre, and Jonas the one haunted.</p>
<p>Noah stepped forward, nudging the door shut with a quiet click.</p>
<p>“I was worried I had the wrong room.”</p>
<p>“You’re not welcome here,” Jonas said stiffly. He had backed into a small chest of drawers and now stood unmoving in what little lamplight emanating from deeper within the room wrapped around the corner, and now he watched Noah unblinkingly, expression coloured with a familiar wariness that felt as if it, like Noah and Jonas themselves, had vanished into thin air and aged decades.</p>
<p>His coldness was not entirely unwarranted, at least. It was not the warm greeting that Noah would have preferred, but he could not argue with it. They had not parted on pleasant terms, after all, and thus far had not reunited on pleasant terms either. </p>
<p>But neither was the man he had been. And Noah counted on that fact working in his favour.</p>
<p>“That may be so… yet I’m here all the same.” Noah inclined his head toward the door, indicating the hallway and the foyer that lay beyond. “Should we take the issue to management?”</p>
<p>Jonas remained silent, but his glance at the door spoke volumes. If Noah’s movement through space and time required a certain amount of anonymity and discretion, it was certain that Jonas required the same to accomplish his goals; it would not do to attract the attention of the local authorities, or to arouse suspicion in the staff who had provided him with a temporary safe haven.</p>
<p>Noah locked the door for good measure, and then slipped his hand into his pocket.</p>
<p>“You can relax,” he said. “I only wanted to return this.”</p>
<p>He removed his hand and held out his key—old, rusted, the tag still attached but mostly illegible dur to age—and noted the way Jonas lifted his chin, appraising the threat of a proffered hand. When Jonas did not reach for the key, he turned and placed it on the nearest chest, then turned back to face Jonas.</p>
<p>“You look exactly as I remember you,” he continued, reaching with one hand to remove his hat, a practiced gesture of humility. He placed that on the chest as well, concealing the key beneath it. “Funny, isn’t it? That so little has changed, despite how far we’ve traveled… and despite how long we’ve spent pursuing our destiny.”</p>
<p>He could not remember precisely how long it had been since he’d last seen Jonas as he looked now. Thirty-some years, he supposed. Or thereabouts. Shortly before the nuclear plant had changed the world, he had handed Jonas a letter from the past, had felt the metal barrel of a gun against his chest, and had known then that although Jonas could not pull the trigger, he would invariably grow to wish that he had.</p>
<p>Jonas, who still looked as though he hoped for Noah to lose sight of him if only he stood still enough, exhaled through his nose. Evidently, he was remembering pieces of his past, too, and though Noah could only guess at what those memories might have been, he supposed they must have been equally unpleasant; discontent rippled across Jonas’s features and turned his expression as sour as curdled milk.</p>
<p>“And you’re exactly as I remember you,” he replied quietly. His eyes moved to the hat again, then to the cross on Noah’s lapel, and lingered on the white clerical collar at his throat. “All that time ago, when you first brought me to Adam… but you and I haven’t met yet. I wouldn’t remember you if I saw you now.”</p>
<p>“We will soon. And you will.”</p>
<p>Jonas nodded. There was no question of what was in his mind now; it was inevitable that the optimistic young Jonas of 2019 would, in rather short time, come face-to-face with the version of Noah that now stood in this room. The notes in the triquetra-stamped book belonging to Claudia had stated that it would occur in a specific manner at a specific time, and as with each event that had been cemented in Noah’s past, so too would this come to pass.</p>
<p>It would be a long time before Jonas would understand his motives, and longer still before Jonas would realize that their goals were one and the same.</p>
<p>“Well,” Noah said after a long, tense pause, “may I?”</p>
<p>Jonas continued to stare at him. Noah understood that to mean he was welcome to move into the room, and so he did. Pushing aside a small wheeled cart, he retrieved a chair, relieved it of its dusty hardcover cargo, and took a seat at the cluttered table. Jonas, who did not seem confident enough to allow him out of sight, had moved into the bedroom proper and now offloaded the weathered backpack that he had slung over one shoulder onto the floor.</p>
<p>“So you came here and found God instead of your daughter.”</p>
<p>“I’m doing what I have to,” Noah said lightly, forcing himself out of necessity to avoid rising to Jonas’s taunt. “And so are you. You still don’t understand the scope of your role in this plan, but you’ll understand one day. It’s under your guidance that I’ve set off on this path… at your suggestion that I’ve donned this clothing… and in fact…” He paused to examine the watch on his wrist, a veritable relic that he had simply never managed to rid himself of. “About a hundred years ago, you’re explaining to me what it is that I must do. I won’t believe you”—he gave a wry smile—“at least, not completely. But I already trust that your plan is better than the alternative.”</p>
<p>“The alternative.”</p>
<p>“The path the universe takes when left to its own devices. Entropy. God’s plan. Which is to say… your plan is better than no plan at all.”</p>
<p>Jonas huffed softly with disbelief and, stepping over a scattered pile of papers that had not yet earned a place in his display, sat on the edge of the bed. It was not as if he had flopped down and invited Noah to stay for dinner, but the simple gesture felt like a concession nonetheless. “So you don’t believe in God, but you’ve come to preach about… how I’ll become him?”</p>
<p>“I know you will. I watched it happen.”</p>
<p>Jonas shook his head and began unlacing his boots, a feat which required him to remove his eyes from Noah for the first time. The tension in his posture was beginning to ease, and the exhaustion that had long tugged on his shoulders had once again begun to make itself known. It could almost be said that he was relaxing. After all, Noah was a familiar face to him, and one that had once been trustworthy; there were so very few of those faces left now, and fewer still in this place, this time. The Jonas of the past had almost certainly viewed Noah as a threat, and for good reason: Noah would, in time, be required to stop Jonas from rescuing his own father from the hospital, and would place him in the same bunker where the Jonas of this age would finally learn the truth about the Jonas that Noah had known for so long. It would be the first time he learned a hard truth about the course of time, the first of many about… yet Jonas’s first encounter with Noah, traumatic as it may have been, would not prevent the years of friendship that had eventually eroded the barrier placed between them by Noah’s near-future self. </p>
<p>It remained to be seen whether their time apart—Noah’s work in the past, Jonas’s absence in the future—had eaten away at the wall that had been driven between them by Claudia after Charlotte’s disappearance. Truthfully, Noah felt he had always been nothing but genuine and kind to his parish and the citizens of Winden across the decades; to Elisabeth, and by extension her parents and sister; and to especially to Jonas himself, who had been stranded hopelessly in a future he could never escape from, and who had unknowingly catapulted himself into the past to find more hard and deliberate truths designed to lead him down the same path he would always choose.</p>
<p>He simply hoped that Jonas understood that now.</p>
<p>“So why come back here?” Jonas asked at last, now peeling an oversized sweater up over his head. “The key doesn’t mean anything, and I assume you didn’t come to apologize. Unless it’s written in your book to be here.”</p>
<p>Noah smiled. Ruefully.</p>
<p>“No, none of this is written in the book that I carry. If I apologize, it’s because I wish to. Not because anyone has instructed it.”</p>
<p>Jonas kicked his boots aside and drew one leg up beneath himself on the bed. It did not escape Noah’s notice that he was continuing to maintain a careful distance, but it was understandable why he might act with caution; the last time they’d been together, Noah’s hands had been wrapped around his throat, and a number of unkind words had been said with an air of particular finality. Their paths had diverged for a time, but Noah had long suspected that they would never entirely disentangle, and Jonas’s quiet resignation thus far suggested that the thought may have crossed his mind as well. “So I’m supposed to believe that Adam sent you to abduct innocent children, but not to stop me from preventing it?”</p>
<p>“Not this time. In fact, I’m surprised Claudia gave you no warning that I was coming… unless,” Noah murmured, shifting in his chair to face Jonas, “she didn’t know about it, either. Maybe that’s why it isn’t in the book. Those missing pages undoubtedly contain important information, but they can’t possibly contain records of every single moment across time…”</p>
<p>Jonas nodded slowly. Not in agreement, but in thought. “Then you think it’s possible that... the history of this meeting may be known only to this room and those within it.”</p>
<p>Noah smiled. Genuinely this time. “No time is ever wasted.”</p>
<p>In the quiet and low light, it was easy to see the outline of the Jonas that Noah had grown with in the barren wasteland of Winden’s future; his shoulders slumped the same as they always did, and his gaze had grown distant, fixated on something that was perhaps neither present in this room, nor even in this century. There had once been a time when they might have shared a conversation like this under more casual circumstances—Jonas growing ever more pensive and quiet, and Noah seeking to provide answers that he did not have to questions he did not entirely understand. </p>
<p>For a single moment, it was as if no time had passed at all between then and now. Dust motes suspended in the lamplight swayed slowly, giving the impression that they, like the room, like Jonas and Noah both, had been frozen in time; the ambiance brought to mind days when Noah would gladly have taken up the empty space on the bed, and together they would have driven away the dancing dust with cigarette smoke and laughter. </p>
<p>But much had changed since those days. Too much to ignore.</p>
<p>“Well,” said Jonas, having seemingly snapped out of his reverie, “let me save you some time if I can. You haven’t come to apologize to me, so the only reason I can think of for coming here is that you haven’t found a way to finally exact a brutal and bloody retribution on me yet, and your plan is to punish me some other way. Right? Maybe you’re here to force me to confess to betraying you, just as Adam said. Maybe you’ll force me to tell you where your daughter is and what I’ve done with her. Or–or admit that Claudia and I were responsible for conspiring behind your back all along. For ruining your life just when one of us had found something worth fighting for.”</p>
<p>Noah’s smile faded and reversed direction. It sounded as though Jonas had thought long and hard about what he would say if their paths ever crossed again, and had settled into hard bitterness and persecution instead of self-pity and despair. And just as well. Noah had spent more nights doing the same than he would ever readily admit to, and until now had committed to remaining undecided on whether he regretted their parting conversation or not.</p>
<p>Until now, he hadn’t needed to look Jonas in the eye. </p>
<p>“If exacting a bloody retribution could bring me the answers I need, I would do that,” Noah said after a brief silence. “But there are things that need to be done before I can have those answers. We’ve always had something to fight for, Jonas. You and I both. Only you still refuse to see it.”</p>
<p>Jonas snorted and scratched at a corner of his beard. “Sure. The future, Paradise… but that’s all I ever wanted, right? Don’t tell me you haven’t considered that it was always my intention to lie to you, to use you as a tool in my plans and schemes, and make you suffer for helping me... for helping Elisabeth, too. Hell, for believing in a fake fucking prophecy that will never come to pass. It’s all a game to Adam, moving pawns around on a board, so it was all a game to me, that’s what you’re saying. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? You and me. Everything we’ve done to each other.”</p>
<p>He was remarkably calm as he spoke, and it chilled Noah to the bone to hear him say those words aloud. It was not his opinion of the prophecy, which he had been vocal about for years, that unsettled Noah, but the possibility that Jonas had spent so many years leading him like a cattle herder with an electrical prod. Of course the thought had crossed his mind. How could it not, after Adam’s promise all those years ago? </p>
<p>And even still, Noah could not recall a single instance in which he had ever truly felt that Jonas was acting against him of his own accord. With Claudia’s influence everpresent, perhaps Jonas had been led quietly astray, steered along a different path by only a few precious degrees—but he, too, had never appeared to be anything less than genuine. Even now, when every word Jonas said carried the weight of a lifetime of grief, it did not feel as though Claudia were speaking through him. Worse than that, it felt as if Noah had been the one to betray him instead.</p>
<p>“You’re always so confident in yourself,” Noah murmured, “and yet you’re always so wrong. I’ve always admired your conviction, Jonas, even if—”</p>
<p>“Shut up. Please. Just shut the fuck up and go back to 1986,” Jonas interrupted in a voice honed finer than a knife. “That’s where you’re supposed to be fulfilling your destiny, isn’t it? Waiting in the hospital for me to try and rescue Mikkel so you can ambush me and leave me to die in the bunker?”</p>
<p>“I came for you,” Noah insisted, pushing himself up from the table and circling toward the bed where Jonas sat, features drawn tight and angular in accusation. “I sought out you and you alone. I can’t speak for what you experienced in the hospital, but this has nothing to do with Adam or Mikkel or destiny, and you know it well. I only wanted to…”</p>
<p>Jonas, springing to his feet to stand his ground, loomed close enough for his breath to ghost over Noah’s face. He was not by any means an intimidating figure—even now, <i>especially</i> now—but he was an infuriatingly stubborn one.</p>
<p>“You wanted to what?”</p>
<p>Noah, who was close enough now to appreciate that Jonas was both cleaner and more resolute than when they had last stood toe-to-toe, could not help but lower his gaze to the scar that ringed Jonas’s neck. Many years ago there had been a second wound, one that Noah himself had prevented from scarring as badly as the first. Impossibly, that wound had healed without issue. No reminder of the fateful event that had brought them closer together remained.</p>
<p>He lifted a hand to Jonas’s throat—</p>
<p>remembered the way Jonas had gasped desperately for breath between his palms, swallowing spasmodically beneath the crushing strength of his fingers</p>
<p>—and brushed his fingertips over the scarred flesh with all the gentleness and reverence he possessed.</p>
<p>“I fear I’ve never been able to conceal a truth from you,” Noah murmured. He traced the scar’s jagged edge, following the line where unmarked flesh met scar tissue and curved around the side of Jonas’s neck, and rested his thumb against the familiar cartilage of Jonas’s throat. He was not sure whether the distant, rapid thudding he felt beneath his thumb was Jonas’s or his own. “You claim to know so much about many things, and claim to know so little about others… I can’t believe that’s unintentional.”</p>
<p>Jonas, who had managed not to flinch at the touch, gave a shaky exhale and met his gaze with one that brought to mind the unfathomable depths of the ocean. He wrapped his fingers around Noah’s hand but, to Noah’s genuine surprise, didn’t move him away. </p>
<p>He simply closed his eyes and breathed.</p>
<p>And that pulse, belonging to one or perhaps both of them, thundered beneath his skin like a distant storm.</p>
<p>“I didn’t betray you. I never got the chance to say so, but it wasn’t me.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Noah wet his lips and allowed his gaze to move freely over Jonas’s face, drinking in the details of his appearance. He had nearly a decade’s worth of crow’s feet and frown lines to catch up on, it seemed. “Adam told me that it was Claudia… that she acted alone.” </p>
<p>“So you believe me now,” Jonas said, voice barely rising above a whisper. His eyes moved beneath their lids and a crease formed in his forehead. “And all it took was Adam telling you. Not me… never me.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“No, you aren’t. But you should be.” Jonas’s eyes fluttered open and his fingers curled into an iron cuff around Noah’s wrist. “Do you remember what you said to me before you left? You wished me all the suffering in the world, and you know what? You got what you wanted. You always get what you want,” he said, speaking over the bitter laugh that Noah could not fully swallow down. “You wanted to keep me alive to spend a miserable existence in the apocalypse with you and you did it. You wanted to leave me alone to find your way back here and you did that, too.”</p>
<p>“Because I lost my <i>daughter</i>, who was one of the only things I had left in that miserable existence,” Noah hissed, jerking his hand from Jonas’s grip. He could feel a familiar, long-simmering rage beginning to boil up beneath his skin, all but palpable in the tight space between them. “One of the only things aside from <i>you.</i> You know that I left because I had no choice. Because I knew that if you weren’t involved in it, then it meant that you didn’t know it was going to happen and couldn’t have prevented it.”</p>
<p>“You just couldn’t accept that there was nothing that either of us could do about it.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t accept that it was my—her—our fate to lose a child.” Noah took a step back, shaking his head. The memory of that night had started to rise unwittingly to the surface of his mind, as ugly and filthy as an overflowing sink leaking black oil. It was still too fresh, too raw. He could still feel the slow and unwilling collapse of Jonas’s throat beneath his hands. “And I knew that if it was meant to happen, then my path would lead me away only because it would take me back to her.”</p>
<p>“I would’ve helped you if you’d let me,” Jonas insisted, but Noah cut him off.</p>
<p>“I hoped I hurt you. I hoped for weeks after I left that you would remember what I said and think every day about what you’d done... or worse, what you’d allowed to happen, and I…”</p>
<p>He shook his head wordlessly, forcing down the caustic grief that had risen in his throat and temporarily silenced him, and felt Jonas’s hands on his arms.</p>
<p>“I did,” Jonas said in a voice so soft that it stung. “I knew it wasn’t your fault, and I wished I could tell you that it wasn’t mine. But you were…” He opened and closed his mouth, seemingly at a loss for words. “There was nothing I could do and you know it. Everything that happened was meant to lead you back to him. Maybe it would take you to your daughter, but it would always lead back to Adam. That was exactly what he wanted. This”—Jonas shook him gently by the shoulders and leaned in until his forehead touched Noah’s—“is <i>exactly</i> what he wants. And right now you’re walking down the same bullshit path he’s always led you down, but this time… this time you can break it. <i>We</i> can.”</p>
<p>Noah swallowed hard. </p>
<p>“Jonas, my wife is in the apocalypse waiting for me to go back to her. My daughter is out in the world waiting for me to find her, and you—you think you understand, but you can’t comprehend how badly I wanted more than that.” He looked down and exhaled sharply. Regret seemed to coat the inside of his throat like acid. He attempted to withdraw and gritted his teeth when Jonas held him fast, certain that if he spoke again, he would not be able to temper it.</p>
<p>“And how foolish you were”—Jonas whispered, still so near and intimate—“to believe you could have what you wanted.”</p>
<p>That was all the permission he needed; if Noah had ever considered himself an impenetrable fortress, then Jonas had always been a Trojan horse, welcomed freely inside and capable of unleashing unimaginable horrors. </p>
<p>Noah attempted once again to wrench himself free of Jonas’s grip while Jonas, still too stubborn to let go, held fast and stepped with him, backing him to the edge of the table. The abandoned crystal drinking glasses chattered with disapproval atop their hardcover towers and papers fluttered to the floor. Impossibly, had the table not stopped them, Noah knew that he would have frozen where he stood; he was not in any way accustomed to Jonas bearing down on him with that same quiet intensity that he had always carried, and he found himself even more startled by his response to it, which was a bone-deep and bitter satisfaction.</p>
<p>There was, after all, always some inherent thrill in being the one threatened, regardless of the situation, and the admirable determination with which Jonas had always approached his problems—however insurmountable they seemed—gave him an aura like that of a dark star. One that Noah would forever encircle, entrapped within its gravitational field, destined to neither diverge from nor collide with. </p>
<p>“Goddamnit, this isn’t going to be some pity party for you. You don’t get to act like I’m the one who left,” Jonas hissed venomously, every bit the wild creature he’d been not ten minutes before. “You know it doesn’t matter what you wanted, because at the end of the day I still had to remind myself that you weren’t there for me. You only ever wanted to blindly serve Adam.”</p>
<p>“You <i>are</i> Adam.”</p>
<p>“And you’re a selfish fucking—spineless piece of shit. For leaving, and for not letting me die in that fucking house where you found me,” Jonas spat hoarsely. “And you’re a goddamn fool if you ever thought that he would care more for you than I did. <i>Me</i>. Not—”</p>
<p>Then his insults stopped. His thought halted mid-sentence. The room went utterly silent because Noah, who could tolerate being called many things but could not bear the thought of having watched Jonas strangle endlessly in a hopeless bid for death, had surged forward and caught Jonas’s mouth in a desperate, hungry kiss.</p>
<p>If there had been any doubt left in Jonas’s mind as to what Noah wanted, this would surely clear any confusion. And, like a fast-acting poison, it seemed to take effect almost immediately.</p>
<p>Jonas released his grip on Noah’s shoulders. He made a sound like he’d been wounded.</p>
<p>And promptly struck Noah in the jaw with his fist.</p>
<p>The brawl that ensued was short but vicious. In the stunned silence that followed, Noah charged ahead, striking Jonas in the chest with his shoulder and sending them both tumbling to the ground with the force of his inertia. Jonas fought ferociously, using his knees to shove Noah aside before scrabbling at the worn backpack he had dropped on the floor, but could get neither his footing nor the item he was attempting to retrieve; they wrestled, knocking aside the hotel’s antique wooden chairs and smashing into the table legs and sending a wheeled cart trundling off to bump into the nearest double-papered wall, until Jonas attempted to scramble to his feet, leaving a brief opening in which Noah could strike.</p>
<p>So he did. He pulled Jonas back to the floor and wrapped an arm securely around his throat, and did not once think about trading blows. He thought only of Jonas’s throat beneath his hands.</p>
<p>“Get off,” Jonas wheezed. He tried to jam an elbow into Noah’s side, and Noah simply rolled them to the side and pinned Jonas face-down against the floor. “Noah—Hanno, goddamnit, get—”</p>
<p>His nails tore at the back of Noah’s head and neck. He scrabbled ineffectively at the sleeve on the arm that was slowly and intentionally depriving him of precious air. Like a snake coiled around its prey, Noah gripped his arm and squeezed Jonas all the tighter, bearing his weight down to pin him in place.</p>
<p>“Is this what you wanted all this time?” he growled breathlessly. “For someone to finish the job for you? Do you wish that I’d watched you strangle until you stopped moving?”</p>
<p>Jonas wheezed and squirmed, helpless despite his adrenaline; with Noah atop him, he was utterly unable to get enough leverage to buck him off or to maneuver his arms into a position to strike back. Even pushing himself up beneath their combined weight appeared to be too difficult for Jonas, and it did not satisfy Noah in the least to know that the final confrontation between them, so many years in the making, had been so swift and decisively ended.</p>
<p>Jonas’s fingers found Noah’s collar and pulled desperately. His hand slipped down to his lapel, down across his arm, and back up to his shoulder, and Noah tightened his grip and listened to Jonas gasp and choke, teeth clicking together wordlessly, breath ragged and shallow.</p>
<p>“You think I’ve forgotten what it feels like to watch someone I love die? I can do it again, here in this very room, and maybe this time you’ll understand why I couldn’t let you hang. I’ll show you—”</p>
<p>There was a strange sound then, like ripping fabric, and suddenly pain bloomed hot and fierce at the base of Noah’s neck—a knife, his frantic mind supplied, a weapon he hadn’t foreseen—and then the pain sparked and flared brightly again as Jonas struck him once more with something small and sharp. He felt it puncture his skin with nauseating clarity.</p>
<p>Jonas struck again. And again. Like a wolf caught in a trap, lashing its tail and baring bloody teeth and gnawing at his own leg to escape. As if to declare ‘if I must die, then so shall you’.</p>
<p>Noah loosened his grip and scrambled back, reaching instinctively to cover the wound in his neck with his hand; blood seeped into the collar of his shirt, and he could feel it oozing freely between his fingers, soaking his shirt sleeve and jacket like warm summer rain. Still struggling to comprehend the turn of events, he stared wild-eyed as Jonas struggled to push himself upright, and saw clutched in Jonas’s hand not a knife, but the small, crimson-smeared cross that had been torn from his lapel.</p>
<p>“I told you to stop,” Jonas half-whispered, so hoarse that his voice was nearly unrecognizable. “Even when I’m begging you won’t listen.”</p>
<p>He climbed to his knees, pivoted away, and dropped the cross on the floor, and only then seemed to notice his fingers were covered in blood. He then looked in horror at Noah, who sat only a short distance away with his hand still pressed to his neck, failing to keep the blood from escaping the lines that the cross had carved into him. An entire lifetime’s worth of emotion seemed to ripple over his face, highlighting every frown line and wrinkle and under-eye circle that the apocalypse and decades of misery had carved into him.</p>
<p>But he only stared. And suddenly Noah’s panic flipped—or perhaps it was his stomach, twisting with pain and fear and desperation—and crystallized into calm clarity. </p>
<p>Was this the betrayal Adam had warned him of? </p>
<p>Was this where his path ended, with Jonas’s fingers bloodying his own throat instead?</p>
<p>“No,” Jonas said softly, as though answering the question. He continued to watch Noah attempt to sit upright and fail, palm slipping against the floor, still slick with blood. He was calm. Too calm. “Slow down, just… don’t worry, you’re not bleeding out.”</p>
<p>Contrary to Jonas’s opinion, it very much felt as if he were on the verge of bleeding out. Still stunned into calmness by Jonas’s sudden shift in demeanour, and by the simple fact that he had just been stabbed several times in the neck, Noah managed to summon the presence of mind to make sense of the detail his fingers noted: small cuts, not wide or long enough to require sutures, and not deep enough to have damaged any major structures within his neck or throat. Blood still trickled between his fingers, but adrenaline had quickly begun to dull the pain.</p>
<p>“You haven’t met me yet. It isn’t your time. If this is what he wants me to do, if this is—if this is his test, I won’t let him win.”</p>
<p>What little discomfort remained—physical and mental both—was dulled by the knowledge that Jonas had, whether by choice or by design, refused to murder him outright. It didn’t remove the pain entirely, of course. </p>
<p>But it helped.</p>
<p>Jonas held out a hand. Then thought better of it, and held it out once again after wiping Noah’s blood on the side of his pants. And slowly, with gritted teeth and a grudging, silent acknowledgement that Jonas could conceivably hold his own in a high-stakes struggle, Noah allowed himself to be pulled upright.</p>
<p>“Take a seat at the table,” Jonas said in a voice that was not wholly indifferent to the situation at hand. “Just… sit down for a minute. We can probably stop the bleeding.”</p>
<p>Noah, who was currently attempting and failing to do just that, obediently returned to his seat at the table, and watched with a somewhat vacant expression as Jonas disappeared into the bathroom and emerged shortly after with several clean, white towels and a wadded-up ball of toilet paper.</p>
<p>“No medical supplies in the vanity,” Jonas said, tossing the towels atop the table. He offered the toilet paper, and Noah pressed it against his neck, grateful to have something other than his own clothing to soak up the blood.</p>
<p>“It’s a hotel room,” he said after a moment. “Were you expecting a first aid kit?”</p>
<p>“I was hoping to find something more useful than this.”</p>
<p>Noah swallowed. The pain had begun to shift into a persistent ache that stubbornly matched the pace of his pulse, but even though the cuts did not appear to be immediately life-threatening, his blood soaked quickly through the toilet paper. When he turned his gaze upward, it was to find Jonas hovering over him with a towel already in hand. </p>
<p>“Have you tried the toilet?” he asked.</p>
<p>Jonas, without acknowledging the question, carefully reached for Noah’s hand. He pulled away the bloodied tissue and pressed one of the towels against the side of Noah’s throat, applying careful but firm pressure. His other hand rested against Noah’s neck, sticky with blood. </p>
<p>“I think it’s fresh out.”</p>
<p>“Probably used by the last person murdered in this establishment.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to kill you.” Jonas’s voice lowered, and the indignation that had flashed across his features was gone in an instant—but his hands shifted, pressing the towel lower, as if he’d just remembered precisely what he held in his fingers. Almost as if he remembered how it felt to have hands around his throat. “You couldn’t die now even if you wanted to, remember? You’re just like me.”</p>
<p>“Hm.” Noah closed his eyes and let the sentiment wash over him like a warm ocean wave. He focused on Jonas’s fingers, and wondered whether Jonas had ever contemplated returning his parting gift. It would be as opportune a time as any...</p>
<p>The thought made him smile, though he did not find it entirely amusing, and he found himself looking up at Jonas to add: “Now I’ll bear a scar of your making… just as you bear one of mine.”</p>
<p>Jonas did not smile back. He simply gazed down, looking at his fingers where they rested on Noah’s neck. Then he cleared his throat.</p>
<p>“Can you give me a straight answer? Without the cryptic bullshit?” He waited for long enough for Noah to incline his head in a manner that indicated the affirmative, then began to wipe the blood gently from the wound on his neck. “Why did you really come here? Aside from the bunker and the time machine and Adam.” </p>
<p>“You already know why I’m here.”</p>
<p>“I want to hear you say it.”</p>
<p>“Well, you know what the Bible says about wanting.”</p>
<p>Noah’s wry smile was not returned. He was not sure whether he imagined Jonas’s grip tightening ever-so-slightly, and he was not sure he wouldn’t have deserved it if it had.</p>
<p>“I never read the Bible,” Jonas admitted quietly. “But my father spoke of it sometimes. About His plans for everything, about how He loves us unconditionally and how we should love Him in return. About how God is love… but Adam says there is no God.”</p>
<p>“There isn’t.”</p>
<p>Jonas lifted the towel away from Noah’s neck to inspect the wound. “So you’re a priest… who wears a Christian cross... who doesn’t believe in God.”</p>
<p>“I have faith,” Noah said simply. “I always have.”</p>
<p>But that did not seem to be enough for Jonas. </p>
<p>“Then what’s the point of this?” He tapped his thumb briefly against the clerical collar, brows furrowed in confusion. “I always wondered… if God doesn’t exist, how can any of us be capable of love? And what good is loving or having faith in something if it’s not being returned to us?”</p>
<p>“You can still love in the absence of God,” Noah replied. “Love is a force as strong as life itself. As strong, even, as death. You may consider them two sides of a coin. To love something… or someone... is to understand that it will die. You understand that better than anyone.” He paused, swallowed, and wet his lips. His throat, though still unpleasantly wet on the outside, had gone quite dry in the past several minutes. “And as Adam says, God is…”</p>
<p>“Time.”</p>
<p>“There is no reason to imagine that time or death or love are discrete and linear aspects of our lives, existing alongside and apart from one another. They’re one and the same. So if God is time and God is love…”</p>
<p>“Time can be death,” Jonas said softly. His thumb slid from Noah’s bloodied collar. His free hand settled against the side of Noah’s head, cradling him. “So love is death, too.”</p>
<p>“Love is also time,” Noah murmured. He leaned his head into the warmth of Jonas’s palm, but did not remove his gaze from Jonas’s face. “And I have known you for a very long time.”</p>
<p>Jonas laughed suddenly, but softly. He laughed not in the way that one would laugh at a joke, but in the way that one would laugh at an old friend whose behaviour was just beyond their understanding, with warmth in their eyes and fondness in their hearts… or the way one would laugh at a sudden realization that had occurred to them, far too late to be of consequence.</p>
<p>And still that mournfulness lingered over him, colouring his every expression like a creeping, ever-present mist. The same sadness that was present in Noah’s earliest memories of Jonas Kahnwald, and in the eyes of the boy he had met so long ago in his youth, in his own time—the very version of Jonas that he knew best of all, who would in time grow into the man that would give Hanno Tauber his name.</p>
<p>The boy with wild hair and a thin line of blood seeping into the bandages around his neck, who had been so desperate to set right the course of time that he would have sacrificed anything for it.</p>
<p>The moment passed. Jonas’s smile faded. But the sentiment had been expressed and now it hung between them, drifting through the air like smoke, or dust, or ash. And as Jonas lifted the towel and inspected the wound, he chuckled quietly again.</p>
<p>“Life and death,” he murmured to himself, tilting Noah’s head to examine him better. “Love and time. Somehow they manage to elude us both. Hold the towel.”</p>
<p>Noah did, and Jonas began to unbutton his shirt with cautious fingers; he removed the collar first, and was uncharacteristically gentle in peeling back the blood-damp fabric to examine the side of Noah’s neck.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” he began again, speaking as slowly as he worked, “years ago, all of this would have.... there might have been a way to resolve it.”</p>
<p>Noah swallowed again. He thought of the years of research, of desperation and frustration, of trying and trying and refusing to give in to the sort of failure and despair that festered and consumed hope like some insidious disease; of decades of persevering, and surviving, and somehow never losing faith, no matter how much that wavered or how distant it seemed; of sitting in companionable silence in the cold, unforgiving dark of the Winden caves, next to the collapsed passage of carved stone, until the day’s hopelessness had sloughed off like a second skin and was left formless and forgotten in the cold dark of the tunnel, and each of them emerged with a fresh perspective, more determined than ever to finish their work.</p>
<p>And Noah felt that once more. Impossibly, the sensation was still there: that renewed sense of purpose, of knowing, like a flame flickering deep within his heart. The understanding that everything he had done in the apocalypse had not been strictly for Adam, or for the version of him who had needed to see him suffer again and again to become who he needed to be.</p>
<p>“And now?”</p>
<p>“Now…” Jonas pressed his lips together in a grimace. “I don’t know. Now it seems like there’s no time for us. Just like there’s no death.”</p>
<p>“There’s always love,” Noah insisted softly, tilting his chin up. He rested his hand over Jonas’s for a brief moment, and waited until he was certain that he commanded every bit of Jonas’s attention. “You’re my oldest friend, you know. There is still time.”</p>
<p>It surprised Noah how much easier it was to say after having been stabbed.</p>
<p>Jonas, after a moment’s thought, gently removed Noah’s hand from his own and stepped back. He took a cloth to the sink, wet it, and returned, gesturing for Noah to lift his head. </p>
<p>Noah caught his eye. It was only for a moment. But it was enough.</p>
<p>“Shame on me for thinking Adam was your oldest friend.”</p>
<p>“I am talking about you,” Noah said, though he suspected Jonas did not need the clarification. He inhaled and closed his eyes once more as Jonas began to wipe the drying blood from his neck and chest; the water and cloth created a searing pain, and though he hissed and attempted to regulate his breathing, Jonas did not stop—so he continued to speak, happy to provide a distraction for each of them. “You as you are now, I mean.”</p>
<p>“But you feel the same way about Adam.”</p>
<p>“I must,” Noah admitted after a brief period of consideration. “In a manner of speaking, I’ve known him… you… my entire life. You watched me grow into the man I am today, and I’ve watched you become the man that he is now. I’ve never known a world without you in it,” he added, then smiled at a distant memory—the same one that had called him back to this room so many years later. “The very same you who, if I remember correctly, forced me to search through empty old toilets...”</p>
<p>“Careful,” Jonas warned patiently. “I may not be able to kill you, but I can still stab you again.”</p>
<p>At face value, his words held a threatening weight—especially with his hands at Noah’s throat. But there was a warmth in his voice, one that had so rarely been present in all their time together.</p>
<p>Noah found himself feeling rather like a cat that had found a puddle of sunlight to bask in.</p>
<p>It was impossible not to smile at the thought—the thought of the cat, and of Jonas’s voice. Not of being stabbed. Certainly not of the sure, practiced touch of Jonas’s hands at his throat, and not of the ease with which Jonas could simply slide his hand down the column of his throat and over his shoulder, beneath his shirt, exposing as much skin as necessary to determine where the blood had soaked into.</p>
<p>“I was only going to say that you brought me here once upon a time to search for supplies. It may not be in the book, but I didn’t think it would be purely coincidental for me to find you here again.”</p>
<p>”Mhm. And your memories of this place are so fond.”</p><p>“Not at all,” Noah said lightly. “I can only speak for myself, but for me, it was never about the hotel. Fond memories or not.”</p>
<p>There was a long silence. But it wasn’t a wholly uncomfortable one.</p>
<p>“Well… if it truly isn’t written in your book, and Adam really didn’t send you after me… you may be right. Nothing happens by coincidence.” Jonas paused, examining Noah’s neck to appraise his clean-up work, then handed Noah a new towel to press against his scratches. His fingers were still stained faintly with blood. Whether or not he’d noticed, Noah couldn’t say; naturally, he elected to remain silent on it, and simply watched as Jonas balled up the soiled towels and, turning back toward the bathroom, leaned over to retrieve an object that lay gleaming gold-and-crimson on the floor.</p>
<p>The cross pin.</p>
<p>He turned it over in his palm, then glanced back at Noah, lifting an eyebrow as if to ask if he wanted it back—and without a word he walked into the adjoining room, tossed the towels in the trash can, and dropped the pin on top of them.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>•</p>
</div>“I lied before,” Hanno said, breaking the tense silence that had begun to ebb over them. “When I pretended I didn’t know about video games or how to play them. That was sort of a lie.”<p>He wasn’t sure what possessed him to confess such a thing. Perhaps it was that the dark in which they had shrouded themselves felt somewhat less oppressive with some aid from the dim moonlight that filtered in through the old windows that lined the staircase. Perhaps it was the fact that Jonas still seemed to be growing more pensive and irritable despite having had far more success this evening than he would have most other nights, which would ordinarily have been spent puzzling over chemistry and physics and quantum mechanics and other such subjects that Hanno was very rapidly becoming familiar with. </p>
<p>Or perhaps it was simply because Jonas and Hanno shared far more than the experience of entering adulthood in the age of the apocalypse, and it seemed silly for Hanno to continue to act as if he were only now discovering the magical technologies of old, unusable alcohol refrigerators and flatscreen televisions.</p>
<p>Jonas glanced sideways only briefly, but managed in the span of that time to suggest both that he already knew, and that he did not particularly care about it.</p>
<p>“Which one’s your favourite?”</p>
<p>Hanno cleared his throat. Names flitted through his memory like the titles of old bedtime stories. He’d often asked to hear the tales retold, too.</p>
<p>“I’ve, uh… I’ve never played one, really. But sometimes–sometimes Elisabeth tells me about them, and other things like… the internet, cell phones, all of that. It’s weird sometimes, especially when we’re out”—he gestured vaguely at the space around them—“and I get to see the same things I heard about growing up, only they’re all things of the recent past for her. And you.”</p>
<p>At the top of the staircase, Jonas and Hanno swung their lights about, examining the equally luxurious and equally dusty second floor of the hotel; at the far end of the left-hand hallway, a single window had been broken, leaving a jagged black hole in the centre of the beam’s reflection on the glass. The hallway on the right held a number of doors similar to the hallway below, with some closed and some open and dark like yawning mouths. </p>
<p>Jonas tilted his head toward the right. Hanno followed.</p>
<p>“Things like YouTube and TikTok and Netflix, you mean.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’ve heard of those. Short videos, movies you can watch whenever you want. I think I would have liked to see some of them.”</p>
<p>They stopped before the first door, which had been left wide-open and displayed a swath of floral wallpaper that snaked out of sight into the room beyond. To be precise, Hanno stopped because Jonas had suddenly stopped, but Jonas appeared to have stopped only to stare at Hanno with an unusual curiosity on his face. And that stopped Hanno because he had revealed more than intended.</p>
<p>And that could present a problem or two.</p>
<p>“How did you grow up hearing about things from the future?”</p>
<p>Hanno shrugged. He stepped inside the room ahead of Jonas. It bought him a precious few seconds of time to think, and to his relief, Jonas split and moved in a straight line toward the bathroom.</p>
<p>“The members of Sic Mundus weren’t all from the same time period. Some of them were older than me. So even though I was born later than everyone else, I was still, uh...”</p>
<p>“Early.”</p>
<p>“Oh. No, I was actually born on time,” Hanno said. He paused at the room’s sole window and scrubbed at it with his sleeve in an attempt to clean away the grime, but the outside was too dirty to peer through. The rain now beat steadily against the window, a soothing and steady noise, and so it surprised him when, from the bathroom, Jonas laughed. Just once. But once was enough to be unusual, and for a moment Hanno allowed the sound to warm him like a flickering candle flame. Even though he had no idea what Jonas was laughing at. </p>
<p>“What I mean is—almost everyone else was born in a different time, and they all traveled back… back to where you met me.”</p>
<p>Jonas’s flashlight had stopped moving, and Hanno could see the shadow of him rummaging through a cabinet over the toilet, just out of sight. “But I didn’t meet you there,” Jonas said after a pause. “I met the priest first. In the hospital. In 1986.”</p>
<p>Hanno knew very little about that. He searched through a nightstand, and searched for a diversion at the same time. </p>
<p>“Did they have video games in 1986?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but they were super old and really basic. Who else was in Sic Mundus?”</p>
<p>The drawer made an unpleasant grinding noise as Hanno pulled it open with just a bit too much force. He glanced back and found Jonas standing in the doorway to the bathroom, framed almost threateningly in the light from his flashlight. In the dark, it was difficult to make out the expression on his face, but Hanno felt icy fingers of guilt creeping slowly down his spine. Jonas couldn’t possibly have known who precisely the members of Sic Mundus were—and for some time, Hanno had not realized that the family he had grown up with were the same that Jonas had grown up with as well. But over many nights, when they had little more to do than think aloud and reminisce about the past, it had become quite clear to Hanno that there were secrets that he still had to hold close to his chest. And secrets which Jonas undoubtedly had his suspicions about.</p>
<p>“I was never officially part of Sic Mundus.”</p>
<p>“But you will be.”</p>
<p>“One day. I guess I’m technically a traveler now, but… I really only knew Adam. And my older self, I met him shortly before I met you, but he never told me anything. Just that there were things I wouldn’t do or things that wouldn’t happen if he told me about them, so he never said anything useful.”</p>
<p>“Were your parents part of it?”</p>
<p>Hanno recalled suddenly a conversation—many conversations—that he had had with his father. Bartosz had always spoken of the future, his past, with a distant sadness, and quite some bitterness. Much like Jonas himself. But he had many stories to tell about Adam—who had still in those days been Jonas—and about the things that the children of the twenty-first century had known.</p>
<p>He knew about video games. He knew about social justices and injustices, and a world full of war and science and changing climates. And now he lived in it, and it felt to him that the time he inhabited now was not at all similar to the past that his father had so sorely missed.</p>
<p>“My father didn’t believe in any of that stuff,” he said at last. “I don’t remember if my mother ever knew about it at all.”</p>
<p>It was a very minuscule lie, dishonest only by way of omission, and it came very easily to him. And it seemed to satisfy Jonas, who nodded and turned away and retrieved his light.</p>
<p>“Looks like the place is empty, unless you managed to find something.”</p>
<p>Hanno hadn’t. Which meant it was time to move on. </p>
<p>They exited the room in silence and moved on to the next. This door, too, was slightly ajar, though they quickly discovered that much of the furniture inside, like the room on the floor below, had been shoved into the entryway and barred their passage and vision into the room beyond.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t worth it the first time,” Hanno said, recognizing the look of consideration on Jonas’s face. “Remember what we found?”</p>
<p>As Jonas began to duck down and test the door’s resilience with his body weight, Hanno swung his light back down the hallway. In the distance, it sounded as if something was whispering—the wind through the broken windows on the floor, he suspected at first.</p>
<p>And then the light shifted. Down the hall, on the floor and wall opposite the staircase. A flashlight that belonged to neither of them.</p>
<p>“Shit,” he breathed, while next to him Jonas whispered: “Someone’s here.”</p>
<p>There was no time to question precisely who had come, or what possible danger they represented; almost without thinking Hanno had extinguished his own light and followed Jonas swiftly and silently to the distant end of the hallway, where another set of rooms lay hidden behind partially closed doors.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Jonas said succinctly. His head snapped back and forth and then he darted into the pitch-black interior of a room on the left.</p>
<p>Hanno followed, closing the door soundlessly until it was nearly shut behind himself, then glanced inside at Jonas, who was now spinning in circles searching for a hiding place.</p>
<p>He ran to the window. A single look at the two-storey drop told him that this was hardly a good escape option. </p>
<p>“It’s too high,” Jonas half-whispered. “We won’t be able to…”</p>
<p>He paused as, somewhere near the end of the hallway, a muffled slam announced the arrival of the Waldhotel Winden’s newest guests.</p>
<p>Without thought, Hanno stuffed his flashlight in his pocket, stepped toward the door, and—shoving his hand into his other pocket—curled his fingers around his gun instead. </p>
<p>He listened hard. He barely even breathed.</p>
<p>“They’re looking in the rooms,” he whispered at last, tucking the gun beneath his arm. “We need to hide.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“We need to...” Hanno repeated, then realized that Jonas was looking at him in the darkness as though he’d suddenly grown an extra set of limbs because he had begun, entirely out of habit, to sign as he spoke aloud. “I mean—fuck. We’re in trouble. Is there any way we can get down to the ground from here?”</p>
<p>He strode back into the room, and Jonas moved swiftly and toward the window, peering into the darkness of the estate grounds below while Hanno looked at the bed (mostly undisturbed, but too low to the ground to fit beneath), then in the bathroom (too few spaces to hide, only a bathtub and a shower curtain), then at the closet (too small for more than one to fit inside), and finally at a small desk that had gathered too much dust in the corner (too open and obvious to hide beneath).</p>
<p>“There’s no way we can make that jump without breaking our legs,” Jonas said from the window; he stood at it for a moment longer with his hands around his face to better see in the dark beyond, and as he glanced back, a brief sliver of light caught his eye as, in the hallway or a not-so-distant room, something else thudded and crashed to the ground. Familiar noises. A door being opened, furniture being overturned. </p>
<p>Jonas’s eyes conveyed everything that Hanno knew. Their company was getting closer, and it did not sound as if they had come peacefully.</p>
<p>Hanno dragged his fingers through his hair, exhaled through his nose, and looked over the claustrophobic space with a new lens coloured by panic and desperation. He looked at the desk. He looked at the bed. He looked at the bathroom and at the bathtub and shower curtain within. And then he looked at Jonas.</p>
<p>“I’m the only one with a gun. I can provide a distraction.”</p>
<p>“What?” Jonas moved closer, breath hissing out between his teeth. “You’re not going out there. We have no idea who they are or how many—”</p>
<p>“We can’t get out through the window,” Hanno hissed back. Another thud, a boot against a nearby door, made Jonas flinch. “We don’t know if they’re looking for us or if they even know we’re here. If we try to make an escape together, they’ll see us for sure. But if I can distract—”</p>
<p>“You’re fucking crazy,” Jonas whispered, and moved easily as Hanno dragged him by the sleeve into the bathroom. “They’ll arrest you. If they don’t kill you first.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Hanno agreed breathlessly, and upon admitting to himself that he had nothing to add to make the situation sound less severe, pushed Jonas in the direction of the bathtub. </p>
<p>The next thud sounded as if it were just on the other side of the wall, and the space around them seemed to narrow even further. He took a step away, turning from Jonas’s dismayed expression, and found himself unable to step again.</p>
<p>A hand held him in place. A fist clenched in his jacket. And he turned back and saw in Jonas’s eyes what he hadn’t seen in so long.</p>
<p>“You can’t go.”</p>
<p>“I can’t stay, I’ll—”</p>
<p>Footsteps grew louder outside the door to the hotel room. Jonas, drawing back his hand from Hanno’s arm as if he were cautioning a wild animal not to bite, took a silent step back and carefully moved into the old bathtub, drawing the shower curtain slowly and cautiously across the rod.</p>
<p>Hanno stepped to the door.</p>
<p>He closed it.</p>
<p>Not entirely, but just enough.</p>
<p>“I can’t fucking believe you,” he breathed, stepping into the tub next to Jonas, who had flattened his back against the wall so that it looked as if he were trying to meld with the tile. But there was not enough room to comfortably stand side-by-side against the wall. Instead, Hanno pulled the gun from beneath his arm and held it out in one hand, pulled the curtain slowly and painfully a few inches further down the rod, and leaned as close to Jonas as he could, hoping desperately that whoever was searching the room would only glance inside and not take the time to investigate more thoroughly.</p>
<p>“You’re gonna get me killed one day,” he breathed. Wisely, Jonas did not respond, and it was at that moment that the door to the hotel room was pushed open; it hit the wall with a thud that, even muffled by the semi-closed door, seemed to rattle the very time around them and made each of them wince.</p>
<p>In the utter silence of the bathroom, with only the nearing thud of footfalls on the wooden floors, neither Hanno nor Jonas dared move a muscle. The seconds ticked by as together they stared at the opaque shower curtain, Jonas backed against the wall and Hanno protectively covering him, aiming their last hope of defence at what he hoped was the doorway.</p>
<p>There was a crash as something tipped over in the room. Voices—two, possibly three—were too indistinct to make out more than a handful of words. And as a set of heavy footsteps approached the door to the bathroom, and the light from a flashlight began to shine in, sweeping over one side of the shower curtain, Hanno tightened his grip on his gun, inhaled slowly—realizing in the same instant that Jonas, whose breath no longer ghosted over his face, had stopped breathing entirely—and braced himself for the worst. </p>
<p>One assailant he could take down. Two was a possibility, but less likely if they carried guns. Three… three would require improvisation and quick action, and Hanno didn’t want to think about what would happen if he failed. But if he could give Jonas a chance to run, or could at least draw their attention out into the hallway…</p>
<p>The light paused for a second on the curtain, then jumped away, plunging them into utter darkness once more.</p>
<p>Someone spoke in the room. Hanno couldn’t quite make it out in its entirety, but the few words and phrases he did recognize—words like ‘next,’ ‘shit,’ ‘nothing’—made him feel for the first time as though they had managed to pull off a very narrow and unlikely escape.</p>
<p>Jonas still wasn’t breathing. Hanno’s arm was beginning to subtly make known the strain of aiming a firearm without shifting position. But the sound of boots shuffling on the floor was growing mercifully more distant with every passing moment, transitioning from tile to wood and then to carpet as the people who had followed them into Waldhotel Winden departed the room and continued their search in the next… and only then did Jonas exhale sharply and sag with relief, tipping his head forward against Hanno’s shoulder as if to offer a prayer of thanks while Hanno continued to stare at a curtain he could hardly see in the dark, fingers trembling almost imperceptibly around the grip of his handgun.</p>
<p>“We’re leaving,” Hanno breathed. “As soon as they’re gone, we go.”</p>
<p>Jonas simply nodded. </p>
<p>There was nothing more to say.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>•</p>
</div>The sound of running water filled the room. Jonas, hunched over the porcelain sink in the bathroom, had begun to wash his hands. Now in the absence of the terror of imminent death, Noah glanced at his own and grimaced at the blood that still covered his fingers. It was certainly not the first time he’d needed to shed blood to deescalate a situation, but it was the first time he’d been stabbed—and by Jonas, of all people. The man who’d once expected that Noah would be best suited for that sort of violence. The one best suited for doing the difficult tasks. For doing what needed to be done.<p>Just as Adam did now.</p>
<p>Noah smiled at the thought. He even chuckled to himself. </p>
<p>Jonas, glancing sideways from the bathroom, turned off the tap. He wiped his hands on his pants—presumably, the towel he’d been using was now in the trash can—and leaned against the doorway. With his arms crossed over his chest and a look of distant displeasure on his face, he gave the appearance of a disappointed parent. And though Noah expected Jonas to lecture him further once the temporary peace grew strained once more, he did not mind sitting in companionable silence until it did. </p>
<p>In fact, it even gave Noah enough time to decide that the beard Jonas had acquired in the recent past made him look younger than he was… yet he could not possibly think of a satisfactory combination of words that he could use to convey such a thought. At least, none that would guarantee he wouldn’t be punched or stabbed again.</p>
<p>Jonas cleared his throat. “Where are you going to go after this?”</p>
<p>“I have business to carry out. It’s possible I may need to stop by the hospital for a short while, but I think that I’ll save it for a different date.” Noah paused, and when Jonas did not so much as twitch in response, he inclined his head inquisitively. “And yourself?”</p>
<p>“I think I’ll do the same.”</p>
<p>Noah smiled again. “Then perhaps our paths will cross again. It’s possible you and I will meet in other times. Ones we don’t yet know about.”</p>
<p>They would. He knew as much, as it was written in his book; and if it was destined to happen, then it must have happened before. Jonas had spoken little—some, but little—of their brief encounters during his teenage years, and had in more vulnerable and introspective moments confessed a lack of understanding of Noah’s plan. And as Noah himself had possessed so few details of that plan at the time, he had been unable to make excuses for things that his older self had done. He had been able only to listen, and ponder the things that had happened to Jonas—the things that would happen to Jonas—and he never once stated that he knew those things would be frightening, and dangerous, and completely inevitable.</p>
<p>Jonas nodded slowly and gazed at the floor for some time. “When I first… when I saw you, I thought I would be angrier about it. Angrier at you, knowing what you did before and what you’re doing now…”</p>
<p>“I expected I’d be angrier upon seeing you as well,” Noah confessed. ”But in truth, I’m disappointed that this wasn’t a bloodier encounter, since”—he paused and lifted the corner of his mouth in a humourless smile—“I swore I’d throttle you for the last time if we met again.”</p>
<p>“It feels like you’ve been trying to kill me my entire life.”</p>
<p>“Not intentionally. But maybe I have.”</p>
<p>“The perpetual disappointment must be driving you crazy,” Jonas said. And when Noah laughed, his first genuine laugh around Jonas in a great many years, his eyes crinkled faintly with amusement. There was sadness there, of course. But it was one of those rare moments in which it felt as if no time had passed at all.</p>
<p>“Not entirely. I’m only disappointed that I’ll never truly be able to exact the revenge I sought ten years ago. Now… now it feels like the best revenge is simply leaving you to your fruitless tasks while I carry on with my own.”</p>
<p>At that, Jonas stood upright with a sigh, uncrossed his arms, and turned back to the sink. He was partially obscured by the doorway from Noah’s position at the table, but there was no mistaking the weariness that tugged at his body as Jonas rested his elbows on the marble and bowed his head. </p>
<p>“Maybe we should keep it that way. We continue to follow the cycle but we stay away from each other. My business remains mine and yours remains yours. No intersecting. No interference.” His voice sounded as if he were speaking directly into a bowl, and there was a stranger quality to it still, just beyond the palpable exhaustion and general melancholy with which Jonas nearly always spoke. “No hard feelings. You get to exact your revenge, and I get to exact mine.”</p>
<p>Resignation. At long last.</p>
<p>Noah pressed his lips together, nodded, and found himself suddenly determined to look anywhere but at Jonas. He removed the towel from his neck and inspected it instead, then felt gingerly around the wound, seeking tender flesh to distract from the ache that had risen in his chest. His fingers came away faintly bloodied, which was neither a surprise nor a disappointment. His flesh had been rent, and so too had other parts of him that had long remained—well, perhaps hopeful was too strong a word.</p>
<p>Or perhaps it was just the right word for what he felt had been extinguished.</p>
<p>“I sometimes wondered…” Jonas began slowly, then paused to compose himself. He stood upright, leaning into the sink, his face still just beyond Noah’s view, and cleared his throat again. “If we really have no choice in the things that we want, if these things are beyond our means to control, then why is it that… why is our inability to obtain them so disappointing?”</p>
<p>Noah leaned forward and lifted the clerical collar from the book where Jonas had placed it. It, too, had been smeared with blood. Jonas’s crimson fingerprints shone against the white like blood on fresh snow. “Did you ever find a suitable answer?”</p>
<p>“No,” Jonas admitted, so quiet that Noah had difficulty hearing him. “At least, not one that satisfied me.”</p>
<p>“Hm. The perpetual disappointment must be driving you mad.”</p>
<p>Jonas barked a laugh at that, but it too sounded mournful and defeated. He sniffled and then stood to his full height, then turned toward the doorway once again. “You need to leave now.”</p>
<p>Noah smiled again. It was not one of happiness this time. And as he buttoned up his shirt and smoothed the damp fabric and bloodied collar into place, he felt as if he were drawing ever closer to unraveling entirely.</p>
<p>“You’re right. Each of us has important work to do. It wouldn’t suffice for me to keep you from pursuing your goals.” He reached for his hat and placed it on his head, and paused briefly to glance up at Jonas from beneath the brim. “Is that really a promise you’re certain you can keep?”</p>
<p>“I won’t stop you from building your time machine.” Jonas watched with his arms hugged against his chest as Noah climbed to his feet, reached for his jacket, and buttoned it up to the collar. He looked less like a disappointed parent and more like a man trying desperately to place a barrier between himself in the world. “In fact, if I ever see you again, it’ll be too soon, I think.”</p>
<p><i>But no hard feelings</i>, Noah thought. It was on the tip of his tongue to say it aloud, but Jonas, hunched over against the door frame with his arms hugged to his sides, suddenly seemed far frailer and more weary than ever. Noah suspected—not with any amount of satisfaction, only sympathy—that if there was a chance that Jonas currently felt even a fraction of the turmoil that he himself had been subjected to these past years at the very thought of seeing Jonas Kahnwald again, that any more bloodshed between them, literal or otherwise, would simply shatter him to pieces.</p>
<p>Noah hoped that was the case. Somewhere deep inside his heart, he knew that it was; and though the thought neither soothed nor satisfied him, it still touched that spot within him that recalled with painful clarity every moment he had spent scraping his knees and elbows raw within the cave systems of Winden with only Jonas’s breathing and the distant whistling of wind for company, and every evening in the apocalypse that had been weathered in the dimly lit bunker with a shrine to the dead plastered to its walls, and every time he had returned to the attic in the crumbling Kahnwald household only to find it empty. </p>
<p>He’d returned many times. </p>
<p>So many.</p>
<p>Just to be sure.</p>
<p>“Good. I feel the same.” Noah swallowed and turned away, hopeful that it would be easier to depart without knowing precisely what damage his parting blow, weak as it was, might inflict, but found that he felt all the worse for it. He could not have imagined a time when his desire to live by Jonas’s leadership had left him feeling crippled rather than emboldened and purposeful, and yet that was precisely how he now felt. As if with each step Noah took, Jonas’s gravitational field grew stronger and stronger, tugging at Noah in such a way as to prevent him from ever moving further at all.</p>
<p>He could not have imagined wanting so badly for Jonas to tell him that Adam was wrong, and that his destiny, though impatient, could wait just a bit longer. The span of a conversation, or a glance, or a kiss goodbye.</p>
<p>“Noah.”</p>
<p>Noah walked to the door. Past trays and stands piled high with dusty tomes, and torn pages filled with black holes and impossible shapes and figures of myth and legend. Past the dark lines set into the wallpaper which would, in time, crack and peel and curl in on itself to create an impossible, never-ending labyrinth meant to draw unsuspecting passersby into the depths of the room. The old rooms of the Tiedemann Estate had grown hungry, and would in time grow ravenous; Waldhotel Winden would present its vast interior and ageless beauty as an opportunity, and would attempt to swallow them whole once inside. And though Jonas and Noah both had escaped the dangers lurking within its rooms before, Noah was eager to leave it behind for the last time.</p>
<p>After all, one needed only to look at the walls of this room to understand what sort of people the hotel attracted.</p>
<p>“Hanno.”</p>
<p>Noah paused with his fingers on the door’s handle and, unwilling to allow his hand to tremble, squeezed the metal tightly within his palm. Footsteps approached him in the seconds that he spent staring at the door, too wary to look back… yet for a moment all too brief, something within his chest seemed to spark with that long-forgotten hope, and he granted himself one last moment of weakness.</p>
<p>He lifted his gaze to Jonas, who now bore down on him with an expression of grim purpose, and found himself too stunned to even make a sound as Jonas took his hand—the one not on the handle—and pressed something conspicuously small and metal-cold against his palm.</p>
<p>And then kissed him.</p>
<p>He closed his fingers around the cross pin as Jonas’s hand slipped away, and had too little time to process the sensation of Jonas’s mouth moving against his own as he whispered, “Go. Please.”</p>
<p>Noah had traveled through time to witness the apocalypse in the year 2020, but he now felt in his heart—for the first time since Charlotte had disappeared, since he had bid his family and his modest life farewell to depart for a time over a century in the past, since Adam had asked him to make choices the likes of which he had not made in so many years—that his certainty in the future, like some failing machine in its death throes, was finally shuddering and grinding to a halt.</p>
<p>He turned the handle with Jonas’s beard still brushing against his face, and turned his face away shortly after. He did not want to acknowledge what he saw in Jonas’s eyes and could not hope to imagine what, in the shadow of that small hotel room, just beyond the reach the warm glow of the hallway light, Jonas might have read on his own face.</p>
<p>Noah left the room. </p>
<p>He walked. He walked swiftly and with purpose. Through the empty hallway with its aged wooden doors, all closed and locked, enticing travelers with their timeless beauty and elegance to turn the handle and look within; through the lobby, with its elegant wooden trim and fashionable accent rugs and damask wallpaper, red like blood; and through the front door made of frosted glass, through which could be seen the dark of night and the diffuse light from the empty parking lot beyond.</p>
<p>He had escaped Waldhotel Winden without injury over a decade ago. Even now, bloodied though he was, he felt relieved to have escaped those dark, barren hallways and the dangers lurking behind partially closed doors; and although the manor would not see Noah again for several years, it made his skin prickle to think that it would one day welcome him back. It would watch him with those great, dark, empty windows and lure him and Jonas both into its depths. And it would take from them both, and would give in return—many years apart, time and time again, eager to begin the digestion process anew.</p>
<p>And he would return. They both would, in different times and places. Hanno and Jonas and Jonas and Noah, alone and together both.</p>
<p>It had never been about the hotel.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">I didn’t specify the year in which the apocalypse segments took place, but you can assume it was probably somewhere in the late 2020s or early 2030s. The modern-day portion of the story is designed to be a 2019 Between the Time-esque sequence, of course. ;)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span class="small">Also! I commissioned a (mostly spoiler-free) piece based on one of the scenes in this story from my wonderful friend <i>wannastayugly</i>, and it can be found both on her <a href="%E2%80%9C">Patreon</a> and <a href="https://wannastayugly.tumblr.com/post/629201160120762368/dark-fanart-commissioned-by-flirtygaybrit">here</a> on Tumblr. Thank you so much for putting up with my shenanigans. &lt;3</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>•</p>
</div><span class="small">“Doch komisch ist auch / Dass ich seit ich bei dir war freiwillig im Park rumspazier' / Das liegt weniger am Park und viel, viel mehr an dir” — <i>Bärwaldpark </i>(Von Wegen Lisbeth), 2016</span><p>
  <span class="small">”The hallways and corridors of a house are its veins, providing circulation coursing throughout its frame; a staircase bears more than a passing resemblance, both physically and symbolically, to a spine; the windows of a house serve much the same purpose as eyes, and anyone who has ever rounded a bend or long drive and come suddenly face to face with a tall, dark manor will tell you that it is difficult to shake the impression that the house, through its lightless windows, is a creature capable of vision and intelligence.” — <i>Anatomy</i>, 2016</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span class="small">“I walked. I could do nothing but walk. And then I saw me walking in front of myself. But... it wasn't really me. Watch out. The gap in the door... it’s a separate reality. The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?” — <i>P.T.,</i> 2014</span>
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